The Road to Hell
by Dreams Travel
Summary: The Tesseract opens your eyes to the truth. Howard Stark has worked with particles of the device and it has shown him a son he dare not father. Now the inventor of the future must look to the past to pave the way for his unborn child. And he knows just the archeologist to help him with that.
1. I Knew Him When

**notes and acknowledgements (aka: the boring bits), see the end of the story please.**

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THE ROAD TO HELL

1. I Knew him when

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The further from the main road, the dustier the track. Battle born, they called this state. Battle born Nevada.

The morning desert was breathtakingly beautiful, painted in soft oranges, retreating purples and awaking yellows and greens. In the distance a mountain range protected the desert plain with its reddish brown and grey guardians, withered away with time and grim with all they had seen.

The desert floor itself was teaming with life. Snakes and lizards came out to doze on flat stones and warm their coldblooded bodies. Sage bushes scented the air and the fuzzy looking but prickly cacti carefully opened their red and gold flowers to the sun. The gophers, nocturnal creatures that they were, had already fled underground to spare themselves from the fast warming day. Sparse, irregular Joshua trees reached out their branches as if in prayer to ward off the evils brought here by man.

This part of the road was painfully straight, easy to traverse and a clear invitation to speed if only to reach shadow. The desert stretched away from the mountains to the far horizon, flat and calm and split by the tarmac in a left and a right because man had to make opposites out of everything.

Humans have always been silly creatures. They build things in remote sanctuaries like this to keep secrets from each other in the hope distance and fences and guns will keep those secrets hidden. But people have made cars and planes to cross distance. They have guile and money to open the gates in the fences- and just bigger guns against the guns.

In this desert they had played with the really big guns until about ten years ago. Big enough to call the bullets bombs, actually. Big enough to make the people who were in the know weary of radiation still. Visitors were discouraged.

At the end of the road battered grey warehouses rose up. Cavernous places of corrugated steel with humongous doors guarded with coded keypads. People had to be able to push other people around and out of the way to get here and push those buttons. Cash in favors and place bribes to acquire the right kind of passes that opened the gates and have uniformed guards with permission to kill stand down and salute. Would be visitors were of a special sort. A tiny elite that knew the warehouses existed in the first place. For that these warehouses -did- exist, was perhaps the biggest secret of them all.

Two of those elite had come today. One knew of the place because of his work during the war, or 'The Good War' as the men of his day would come to call it. He was the one with the leverage and the money needed to get in almost legally. The other man had been here before, but not in the best of circumstances, and he lost a friend that day. He was the one with enough knowledge of the things inside the warehouses to never have come back here willingly.

They were part of a small caravan hurrying towards the buildings. An open military jeep up front with the brass, a truck filled with young soldiers at the back. A totally out of place sleek burgundy Rolls Royce Phantom in the middle. At the wheel sat one of those professional men in grey uniform with gleaming silver buttons, a black rimmed military looking hat and white gloves on his broad hands. He drove silently, hiding the strength the more obvious bodyguard beside him displayed in abundance. The buff man stat stiffly, uncomfortably dressed in a crisp blue suit that did nothing to hide the bulk of his bulletproof vest, or his gun. The dark little screen between the compartments allowed their employer and his guest their privacy in the back of the Phantom. Their employer had come here in hope to find the means to save the life of a brother who was born both from and for battle. The second man had been forced to come. But only because his wife lost a bet.

"You are a bastard, Stark."

The two men sprawled in various states of disarray over the backseat of the car, both nursing a hangover. At the sound of the raspy voice, the younger man straightened from his slouch in the corner against the car door and looked out over the desert through the tinted glass, trying to shake it, massaging his left temple but it was not working for him. He rubbed his face with both hands, trying to wake some more, and messed up his expensive haircut. Only in his mid-forties and already almost completely grey.

"Your wife holds her liquor better then you do, Jones," Stark gave in lieu of an answer. The scruffy man besides him chuckled and pushed a battered old mud colored fedora even further over his eyes, long legs stretched out as much as the Rolls allowed, squinting against the light filter by the tinted windows.

"And I think she did not enjoy the thought of us coming here. I think she does not like me very much."

Opposites, these two. Cultured elegance set against scruffy indifference. Howard Stark, MSc, liked to call himself an engineer of the future. Dr. Henry 'Indiana' Jones studied and explored the past. With a grunt, Jones sat up, tipped up his fedora and chuckled.

"What gave that away? The colorful language or the bottles she threw at you?"

"You two make married life look so interesting."

"Nice reflexes by the way."

"Yeah- well- Sorry about the mirror."

"Was bought by her for the new house. Never liked the damn thing."

Howard gave a light chuckle and turned away from the landscape. "She does not like me using my private plane to steal you away from her either, does she?"

Jones shook his head, rolled his shoulders, rubbed his neck and flinched. "She does not like you because you buy people to get things your way. She does not like it that you´ve earned a fortune in the arms business, only using that big brain of yours to make your guns even bigger and better. She does not enjoy the thought that you've subsidized some of my expeditions and that her new house for a large part comes from your money. "

"She does not like me period."

"She does not like you period. And she wants me to stop going out there, stay at home. Retire from the field."

"Enjoy your cushy university job?"

Jones grunted at that. He loved teaching but hated university politics. "Cushy my ass. Just let´s say your money is not exactly speeding my retirement. Marian hates that. Don't blame her, she is right at some level. I -am- getting too old for this shit."

"You're not that old."

"Ah shut up, you young whipper snapper. I could be your dad.'

Howard shrugged and gave a bratty smile that showed teeth. "She hated me winning our little drinking contest."

"So you are a –smug- bastard. You surprised her with that. Both of us, actually." Jones' tone betrayed that he was not totally pleased with that. Howard frowned but decided to let it go.

"Had to- she would not have let me drag you out here if I had not."

Jones made a face, took off his hat and inspected the inside and worried the lining a bit before flopping it back on his head. "Where did you learn how to drink like that anyways?"

"Where did she?!" Howard exclaimed and both men frowned, pained with the loudness of his voice.

"In a tavern in the Himalayas. During the war."

Howard grinned and slumped in on himself, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He rubbed his face tiredly.

"I had to ask..."

Jones yawned and stretched. "And you?"

Howard paused a bit, trying to make sense of the almost moaned question. Without looking up, he answered. "Steve."

Eyes wide and sparkling with mirth the doctor relaxed against the backrest "No kidding? Captain bloody goody-two-shoes America drank?"

"No he did not, not really. He had no use for it. And that was the point, actually. Because of the serum and the treatment his body cured itself from poisons and flushed the alcohol almost as fast from his system as he could take it in. It had also something to do with his altered metabolism that worked a lot faster- and cell regeneration- I seem to remember he was always hungry. But his men, The Howling Commando's?"

Jones nodded, he remembered those.

"Well, they never stopped trying to get him drunk- and I got mixed up in some of those parties while they were on leave."

"Ah- the good and olden days."

"Of yore."

"Yeah."

The men fell silent, both remembering those olden days of yore too vividly still- and much of it had not been so good.

Stark sat up and leaned back again, legs crossed at the knee, stiff now. He stared into the far away distance of the desert without seeing it, fist in front of his mouth. "But perhaps- with the help of the stone-" He hesitated- the words halted, his mind far away and somewhere long ago. His face drawn tight.

Jones looked sideways, thoughtfully, and he spoke his next words slowly, carefully- Picking at his clothing as if he suddenly discovered some lint.

"You should let the Captain go, Howard."

Almost angry Stark turned to his companion.

"The serum might have preserved him- if he was flash-frozen he -might- still be alive!"

Jones remained silent.

"Goddamnit, Indy! I -know- it's almost been twenty years- God -how- I know! But I also just- know-, beyond logic or reason, that he lives. Out there- as if asleep. And if I'm right- and if that Soulstone of yours works as you suspect, it will tell us!"

Howard looked quite miserable and beaten from more than last evenings binge or the too little sleep both men have had on their hurried flight here. For as long as Jones has known him, there had been something not quite right with the superb engineer. But A piece of the puzzle remained missing and Jones just could not shake the feeling that the piece was not Captain America shaped. There was this nagging feeling that both the lost Captain and he himself were but means to an end. Because why on earth would a man of the gleaming technology of the future be so interested in the moldy remains of the past? Marian had more than once warned him his love of puzzles would be his undoing some day.

"The stone might- mind you, -might-, be able to find his soul on Earth and show you he's alive. If he's alive. And if he is, it should glow stronger the closer you get to him- But it cannot show you exactly where he is- or how deep that damned plane of his has sunk."

"Alive and in the neighborhood is enough. It's all I need. I'll do the rest. Hell- I have already created a sub for ridiculous depths."

Howard seemed weary, bone tired. Of late he had lost a lot, personally. A close associate had been outed as a Russian spy, and the government was now deeply involved in the compromised Stark Industries what left its owner very little moving space with his inventions and developments. There had been some family trouble with an already estranged brother that drove the two even further apart. Except for his work there is not much the man truly seemed to care about- and even if he could buy himself some company in the evening, his bed would still be empty come morning. Jones got it. He really did- he'd been there. Not every man was lucky enough to have the love of their youth step back into the autumn of life, complete with an adult son he never even had to change the nappies of. Jones' life had been one hell of an adventure, one grand thrilling exploration of the past. Howard shared that passion for the next step, that little bit further, even if he was looking the other way, to the future. Looking back was easier, for you did not see the emptiness in front of you glaring back.

During The War there was a terrible yet great sense of purpose, shared by absolutely everyone. The enemy usually dressed in clear colors and came from one side only. People shared their last bit of food with a neighbor or comrade, huddled together under ground when the bombs fell. Olden times.

When the war had been lost and won, countries- no continents had to be rebuild. For a little while, comrade truly meant friend- until the people frosted over and fear started to divide and poverty again became redistributed by theft.

The cold war had brought Stark a fortune. He had allowed it to take away almost anything else. Then politicians took from him the freedom to explore the arctic at his leisure. Somehow it seemed the frozen soldier held the key to Howard's future, of him being able to live it to the full instead of just waiting out the days. After his mother's death Indiana's father had become like that. The elder Jones had substituted life with the search for the Holy Grail- the Cup of Life, and had only truly begun to live again, when he had been touched by the cup- and had lost it in favor of saving Indiana. Jones wondered what Howard had left to lose, what he had to sacrifice before learning the lesson that nothing could replace just living your life. The man looked miserable.

The small caravan came to a halt. Before the driver could help him, Stark hopped out, all smiles and polished efficiency, zooming in on the colonel accompanying them. The fat necked bodyguard hurried to keep up with his employer. Jones fumbled for the car door, but he was let out before he could catch it. He nodded at the driver while climbing out, adjusted his jacket and his hat and stared up at the buildings against their backdrop of cloudless blue. They were still painted airbase grey, still marked with white rising numbers.

The young soldiers jumped out of their truck energetically- probably happy to have been assigned the light duty of accompanying some stupid VIPs trudging around base. Jones remembered the circle of rifles he had faced the last time he had been here. A group of Russian agents had collected him all the way from Mexico to help them find an alien corpse hidden in the maze of innumerable wooden crates he knew the building held. These boys would live out the day, probably. Their past colleagues had not been that lucky- the Russians had killed every American soldier in sight, on sight.

"Indy!" Stark was calling out impatiently at the entrance to the candy store. Colonel What-was-your-name-again? had used a code to open the electronic lock and two soldiers were sliding the double doors to the sides. It looked like the opening of a large flight hangar. The Colonel's aid, mister green clad Very-annoyed-with-pesky-civilians, tried to explain to Stark that he was not allowed to go inside without military escort and, charming brat that the man was, Stark just smiled and told them it was alright, because Dr. Jones also held the rank of colonel and would they please step aside? Now? He waved some papers under the military men's noses, reminded them (again) of his total clearance (bought) and asked them with large puppydog eyes and a viper's smile to stand back.

Stark ordered his bodyguard to hang back also, to Thick-neck's obvious displeasure, and strutted into the dark maw. Lights audibly clicked and flickered and came to life as Jones followed. Stark called him again, without looking, impatient, and his voiced sounded hollow in the almost echoing space.

Jones felt like standing at the bottom of a canyon looking up at irregular mountains of crates upon crates in the dusty lamplight. There were windows installed, high at the sides of the building- but they were far and caked with dust so the natural state of this place was gloom. Stark went in far enough for his voice not to carry outside, stopped and turned to Jones with a question on his face, surrendering control of their little expedition.

"I hate this place, " Jones grouched, " And we could have used the help of those boys outside, you know."

"Perhaps- but I hate people snooping around in my business- And I've paid enough to make sure nobody will find out what we'll be taking away."

"In money or contracts?"

"Both. The senators need to feed their campaigns and the generals need their flying toys- don't worry, I can afford it."

Jones smile turned wry, Stark really knew everybody's price. "I bet you can."

"That one you would win."

"Don't remind me" It was cooler inside which helped some with the headache.

"So how do we do this? You got a map of this place or something? A locator?"

"We're the locator".

"Right." Stark's eyebrows rose and he crossed his arms. Jones grinned more evilly.

"The stone is a magical artifact. Apart from showing if man is alive or not it can, under the right circumstances, apparently tear your soul from your body, capture and contain you. That is the -real- purpose of the stone, to be a container of souls and their power, for storage, if you will."

Howard hesitated. "Sounds a bit diabolical."

Jones nodded. "Yeah. Just a tad. And people instinctively get scared when they get close. So we need to use ourselves as a kinda, compass. Just- walk around, and if you feel you -don't- wanna walk where you are going, just try to feel why. So get in touch with your feelings, chief."

"Oh wonderful." Howard deadpanned.

Jones rubbed his hands and looked up and around. "Just don't open anything- especially not if the crate smokes, looks cold or looks back."

"Right." Howard drawled, and stayed in the middle of the pathway even as he felt his fingers twitch to satisfy his natural curiosity. He felt himself drawn to something on his right, so choose to go left. It took Jones a little longer to 'feel' around- but then he turned left, seemingly deep in thought and unconsciously following the engineer.

The shadows looked a bit deeper at Howard's far right now, and he did not like it. Stubbornly, he set out to go just there. Jones walked past the turn Stark made, started when he noticed it and retraced his steps, a little irritated that he had lost his concentration. With a few long strides he caught up with the engineer.

"Are you on to something?"

Howard shook his head, puzzled. "I don't know. Does it look darker to you over there? As if some of the light bulbs have blown?"

Jones regarded his friend carefully, frowning. "No. But you might be better at this then I am. Did not expect that. Ever done magic tricks as a kid?"

Howard gave Jones a real smile, not the one he used on the men outside. "Not after I put one of my cousins in a box and tried to saw her in half. I never knew my aunt could -screech- like that. Before working with the Tesseract I did not even believe in magic, let alone try to make it work for me. They told me they had their best people working on it, which is rubbish because that would have been me."

Jones had heard of that device of course. A thing left either by aliens or Norse gods, presuming those entities where not one and the same. During the war it had been uncovered by special German forces calling themselves ´Hydra´. It had been used to fuel fantastic weapons capable of disintegrating any material, including the flesh of soldiers. And it had.

Some of those weapons had made it into Allied hands and into Stark's laboratory, thanks to the efforts of Captain America and his crew. The scientist had tried to reverse-engineer the weapons and therefore had first-hand experience with the Tesseract- or at least small particles of it. Stark himself had found the thing in the first weeks after Captain America went down in the Arctic, and had promptly been forced to hand it over to the US government.

"Well, if that is true that thing might be around here somewhere."

Stark looked up sharply at that, back straight, eyes wide. Jones could swear he saw the man's ears twitching as if he were a cat sniffing the air, whiskers trembling. He seemed to scan the enormity of the warehouse, then dropped his shoulders and shook his head.

"No- no it is not here."

Jones looked at Stark's profile, frowning at the performance. "Ya think you would have felt it or something?"

Stark nodded, slowly. "All of us who worked with the tiny bits we had of it, were- changed. Not much. But is showed us things. Showed us- truths. We became aware of where the bits and piece were."

"And what it showed you kept you looking for the Captain?"

Stark turned, head up, shoulders straight. Changed in a flicker of the overhead lights from dreamlike to sharp, all angles and artificial smiles. His eyes grown cold.

"Remind me to tell you about it sometime."

"No." Jones planted himself firmly in front of his friend. "I rather know now what I'm in for."

Howard deflated, posture gone, weariness back.

"You will think me mad. Besides it is personal."

"Chief- In my life I've met with a man over six hundred years old and I've seen more than one temple cave in simply because its main artifact was taken out. I've seen wounds heal by magic, I've seen men's faces melt away by magic and I've seen the mind of an old friend taken over and made the messenger of a people literally not of this world! There are very few things you can tell me that would make me think less of you than I do now- " Jones frowned and shook his head while Stark grinned at him- "And that really sounded bad-"

"Not to mention corny. "

"Not to mention corny. So take it as I mean it and not as it sounds. What did it do to you and what is bugging you."

Stark stepped back, pulled a hand through his hair and flopped down on one of the crates. He looked up at the Doctor who gave him an excessively kind and fatherly smile, and a nod to encourage him. Stark laughed and threw up his hands.

"Alright- alright. I'm supposed to have a son. One day- at least. He- he's supposed to outsmart even me. He's supposed- " Stark had to move now. He could not stay sat down, stood again and paced around Jones, who slowly turned with him.

"I've worked on the Manhattan Project. What happened in Japan and the nuclear threat the world lives with today is for a large part my responsibility- mine."

"Yeah I know that. You've been called a hero for that. The Bomb ended the war. But you did not exactly work on alone. And you definitely did not gave the order to drop it."

"Yeah- thanks. But that kind of thinking does not absolve me from my responsibility. I helped, contributed. A lot." Stark let out what seemed a long held heavy sigh. "In the first days after they had been dropped over three hundred thousand people died. And to this day we have no idea how many have been inflicted with radiation poisoning and got cancer from that. How many innocent children have been stillborn, or born deformed- And you know what the worst thing about that is?"

Jones silently shook his head. Stark wrapped his arms around himself as if cold.

"The worst thing is that God only knows how many people-good American people, were saved because of this horror- And I'm not sorry. I was not. But since the war- Since working with the Tesseract particles, I've been having these dreams. And I did not understand them- Not for a long time- not until I had seen the footage of ground zero Hiroshima. You see- this unborn son of mine, like Steve, is supposed to save America, our good old US-of-A, from that exact same fate. And every time when I see this happen in my dreams, Steve is there. Captain America in all his glory, is standing right there. And I know, I just know, that my boy will never make it to that day, will never be able to prevent that day, without the Captain."

Jones swallowed, rubbed his face and nodded, taking Stark absolutely seriously.

"How old is that kid of yours when all this is supposed to happen."

Absorbed by his own vision it took Stark a moment to come back. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"You have no kids, not as far as you know at least- and don't look at me like that, it happens, okay? I met my boy the first time when he was almost an adult already. So whatever vision of apocalypse you have had, it won't happen just yet."

"He was- thirtyish. But I got the sense he had seen some mileage- He looked older."

"And the Captain?"

"Unchanged."

"Did the serum make him age slowly?"

"The effects were never that documented- The inventor of the process was murdered the day we made Steve, he was the only subject we've ever had and could have examined- But he was sent off almost immediately to help raise money for the war effort."

"Then it seems to me you've got some time. If these visions of yours are true, then this will not happen until what, thirty, forty years or so? And it will probably be –him-, or his contemporaries to find the Captain, not you."

Stark let go off himself an balled his fist, composed himself. "So what are you saying? Do nothing! I can't! And I can't tell anybody except somebody like you, who has seen things. My government contacts would laugh me out of the room, my army contracts would be nullified, my stocks vanish- Because poor Howard went off his rocker. Because he is arrogant enough to believe some unborn messiah kid of his will save the world with the resurrected prophet America at his side. How's that for come on line to his future mother, let alone a marriage proposal. God I need a drink."

Howard reached for his inside pocket, drew out a flat flask, unscrewed it and threw back a hefty swallow. He offered the flask to Jones but the Doctor waved it away and so he pocketed it again.

"I cannot do nothing, Indy. So I delay any relation that could lead to that boy, and I search. And I keep myself deeply embedded in the arms-race, I know a lot, but I keep out of politics as much as I can and I'll even resort to magical thingemewhatsy stones if they give me, or perhaps only my boy, the chance to retrieve Rogers."

Stark sat down on his crate again, hands in his pockets and legs thrown out, staring at his feet. Jones hesitated a moment, shrugged, settled down besides the engineer, took of his hat and played with a bit of thread that had come loose at the seam. A quiet settled down over them, in which they could hear the persistent buzz of the electrical lights overhead.

Stark looked sideways a moment, and nudged Jones's shoulder with his own. "You are going to ruin it, you know."

"Ruin what?" Jones pulled a bit at the dark lining inside and yanked at the thread. It came off with a snap. The doctor held the battered fedora close to his face and peered in.

"Your hat. You should not pull at the threads. Or snap them off."

"I'm thinking of leaving it to Mutt. As a kinda sorta- passing of the stick- Something like that."

"You are not leaving him much if you ruin it. And Marion will hate you for passing on that particular stick."

"Marion does not get to decide Mutt's future. If my son wants to go off and live his life like I did mine, than that is none of her business. On the other hand, If he wants to stay at home and pursue a purely academic career, or god help him, become a mechanic, that still would be none of her business. Or mine for that matter. He can always use a hat though."

Howard stared at his shoes again, a couple of shiny black and white wingtips. Expensive- stylish. "And what kernel of wisdom are you throwing my way here exactly?"

"We do not get to decide what our kids grow up to be. Especially not the ones that are not even born yet. We do not get to plan their role in history, regardless of what visions we may have for them, magically induced or otherwise. The moment I knew I had become Henry Sr. I was stupid enough to start yelling at new young master Henry Jones Jr. about what he had to do and be. Just like my old man did to me. He meant well and it was his way of telling me he loved me, but I did not want to become like that. I missed too damn much of Mutt's life already to waste what we have now by telling him what to do or what to be. You are so worried about this kid of yours to get hurt he might not even ever come about. Or get a chance to breathe if he ever does. You can't live like that. You should not. The past is gone. The future does not exist. You've only got the now to act with."

"Who said that?"

"Some Buddhist." Jones peered down the passageway. "I think. So were you any good with it?"

"Tesseract bits blew up in my face a couple of times."

"No- the magic tricks."

"Got some sleight of hand. And I still think it's darker here."

"Actually- it's really not."

"What are you trying to not tell me, Jones."

"Some people have a natural talent for magic. I think your work with the device might have triggered or enhanced yours. You seem to feel a hell of a lot more then for instance, me."

"I'm an engineer- not a clairvoyant. To the left and the back, I think. It's getting cold here."

"I don't feel it. Must be nice to be you."

"Fuck off, Jones"

Jones dropped his fedora on his head again and stood. "Ready to move?"

Stark nodded. "Yeah. Let's mosey."

The men walked in silence for a while. Howard shivered. The more he thought of the stone, the more he really wanted not to be here. Jones stopped trying to find anything for himself and was now focused on Stark. He caught the man by the elbow when he stumbled.

"Watch it- treacherously flat floors here."

"I'm getting scared here, Indy. Ready to bolt from this place scared. And you don't feel a thing, don't you?"

"You wanna continue?"

"Absolutely."

Apparently Stark needed to be distracted a bit. "Have I ever told you I met the Captain? Once?"

"You met Cap? Steve never told me that- YOU never told me that."

Jones grimaced. "The one time I met him face to face did not end so well. I was not exactly one of his most favorite people, you know. And it was not the best day of my life, actually- I - I don't talk about that, mostly."

Howard glanced at the doctor expectantly. Jones nodded, that wry, self depreciating look back on his face again.

"I've never met your friend Steve. Not the shy guy that liked to draw. I only met Captain America in all his righteous glory."

"You guys fought about something."

"Something- yeah. And I saved his life- I think I might have even have saved the world that day. But it was not pretty, and I - I had to do something I'm not very proud of. I was digging around in the Balkan, Latvernia to be precise. There is this mountain the locals say is cursed, as in such bad luck that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I was looking for some magical key that was supposed to open the gates of hell for either Hydra or the SS or both. The Allies wanted those gates to be kept shut so I was sent to destroy that key."

Howard held his head a bit to the side to indicate he was listening and nodded. "What happened?"

"Got myself caught by Red Scull's cronies right of the bat, who already had found that mystical 'key'. Turned out to be a little gypsy kid some weirdo monks had conjured up. Literally, conjured up. Some of the gypsies had magic- and I mean -real- magic. There was this little old lady that could freeze and burn you at the same time. I've seen some weird things in my time- but this was- exceptional. That is why the monks left the kid with these people. In hindsight, not smart.

The bad guys tried to kill the kid because his blood would open the gate. With magic it always seems about killing people, the blood and snakes. Don't ask about the snakes. Anyway, I got the boy out, but I covered his escape and they got me again. So they decided to cut -my- throat in their ritual, as a substitute. It would not have worked with me, that ritual, but I would be dead and the Hydra commander apparently could not care less.

The kid was smart though. The Gypsies were supplying Cap and his commandoes and hiding them. They were taking out all the Hydra bases in Europe and I was just very lucky it was the Latvernian base they were after then. So the kid goes to warn the Commando's who were almost ready to attack. Cap decided that me playing sacrificial lamb was just the distraction they needed, and they barged in.

"Sounds dire."

"It got worse. The gypsy boy had followed his heroes, got very badly wounded in the scuffle and was apparently close enough to the magical circle or whatever, to have his blood open the damn gate. Worse bad luck I've ever had. But guess what, cursed mountain. Anyway- monsters and demons pour out of the opened seal they had drawn on this wall, the Cap puts up a tremendous and brilliant fight and half of Hydra's goons are dead, a few of Cap's soldiers fall and I-

I knew that the only way to stop the flow of those creatures, to stop the demons- to save the god damned world! was to stop the kid's blood from flowing. So I went to that innocent, brave, twelve year old boy- and I shot him through the head."

Stark halted, startled, fear forgotten. "Jesus Indy!"

"It looked like the boy was too badly wounded to be saved already. The Captain really hated me for making sure. But he saved my life that day and I still owe him one."

Stark stopped suddenly.

"I can't see anymore."

"The hell?"

"No- I'm not blind or something. If I look back I see the lights, the crates, everything. But here, right here- I can't even see my own hands."

Jones nodded. "Okay- we are going to walk a bit further, and when things get better for you we turn back."

"Because where it is worst for me, that is where the stone is."

"Yeah- and when we've found it I want you to let go of it immediately. Your reaction is a lot stronger than I expected and I really do not think it's all that good."

"Okay- but you gotta lead me here- I really can't see."

Jones took Stark by his right hand and elbow and the men shoveled on a few paces. Starks hand was very cold and clammy, as if he had been throwing snowballs without gloves on.

"Hang on, it's getting better here."

"You sure?"

"Oh yeah." Stark swallowed.

"Then we move back."

Stark stopped at that, could not move for a second and visibly forced himself to turn. Jones took his left hand to guide him back, keeping himself between the crates and the engineer. Stark stumbled, kept upright by Jones but only just, who took his weight ungracefully for a moment and the doctor made a face.

"Here?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay now- is it further back, or just at the outside of the pile."

"I think it's on top. Up."

"Okay. I'm going to climb up. See if I can find some small box."

"I better sit down then."

Jones lowered his friend to the filthy ground. Stark really had to feel lousy to endanger his pants like that.

History, Jones had found, too often did repeat itself, with a little variation each time. The pile he climbed was just as high as the first time he did this. But all that was waiting for him at the bottom was a miserable looking guy, huddled in on himself, not a handful Russian goons with guns. He really hoped the box he was looking for was just laying on top somewhere, because otherwise he would have to leave Stark sitting down there as an impromptu beacon, marking the 'spot' as it where, and go get the soldiers to help them.

Jones' back was even less helpful then it had been five years ago, and he grunted as he hoisted himself up another layer of boxes. "Now where are you," he mumbled- and was overcome with a wave of dizziness himself. Contact.

Jones bit back the wave of nausea and the rising bile from his stomach. Nauseating, numbing fear and blindness- the thing was really warning them off. Right in front of him there was a dark spot. A small spot. A box small enough to throw his hat over. Tiny. Black. Deeply black. And within the blackness small pinpricks of light, dancing. Jones crouched down, shook his head. Forced his mind to change gears. He thought of Marian, and the smile she wore on their wedding day, and the puppy she wanted to buy them and that bloody white picket fence she wanted pulled up around the yard.

His head cleared and all Jones saw now was the small box bathed in the lamplight from right above. Carefully, Jones threw his fedora over the box, and picked it up without touching the damned thing.

"I got it!" he shouted down, but was not answered. Jones looked over the edge of the crates, and saw Stark curled up like a shrimp, shivering. "Oh damnit!" he hissed and clambered back as fast as he could, not daring to jump down on the crates for fear of breaking them open and falling. Only one hand to grip with he yelped when he grabbed fully in some splinters. Jones cussed all the way down, leaving bloody handprints on the boxes, two of witch where absorbed immediately and totally by the wood. Jones did not allow himself to be unnerved any further, He wanted out- like right now! He wanted sunshine and gophers an a tequila on the back porch. He wanted his friend up and moving again and wrenched from the influence of this damned thing they had come to collect. If they took it, he knew, things would only get worse. Because history repeated itself.

Finally down, Jones hurried over to Stark and dropped his hat so he could shake the man with his good hand. The engineer moaned softly.

"Howard? Howard! Come on man! You can let go now!"

But Stark was unresponsive.

"Stark! Come on! Let go- think of something nice. Think of a dog- did you ever had a dog? Think of a large floppy dog!"

Blearily stark opened his eyes.

"I hate dogs."

"Yeah okay- you are gonne be okay."

"More of a cat person myself."

"Think of cats then- fluffy kittens."

"Mrfgr."

"If that is supposed to be 'mew' you are a lousy cat."

Stark stretched and coughed sat up and shook his head which was a mistake because he became sick immediately, all over Indy's shoes.

"O great," Jones said, digging his pocket for a hankie that could still pretend to be clean.

"Sorry about that- and I don't do imitations."

"Yeah I know- you are a Stark original. You think you can stand?"

"Ha bloody ha. I think so- just gimme a moment."

Stark took the handkerchief Jones offered, wiped his face and fumbled for his whiskey. Jones deftly pulled the flask from his trembling fingers.

"Ah no- I don't think so. You don't need liquor to settle your stomach. Does not really work."

"Got a foul taste in my mouth."

Jones nodded and helped Stark to his feet.

"And I've got splinters and I'm bleeding but I've still gave you my hankie- now do you hear me complaining?"

Stark looked at Jones' hand, turned a bit green and smiled rather jolly.

"Hé- I can see you bleed!" Stark fumbled for his silk breast pocket handkerchief that matched his tie and handed it over to Jones so he could bind his hand.

"You should have that looked at."

"Wonderfull, he can see me bleed. Now let's get the hell out of here."

"No- not until we've opened the box and I've seen the stone. I don't want to walk out of here with the wrong item."

Jones nodded. Turned his hat over carefully, straitened and brought his heel down on the old wood hard so that it snapped with an almighty crack.

"Auch!"

"Idiot."

"I want out." Jones kicked the wood away, and moved the debris and the wood curls that had been used as packing material.

"There!"

In between the two men lay a tiny black stone, small enough to be hidden in a child's fist, a bit too large to be set in a ring. The men crouched down to look at it. Three sides of the stone seemed ribbed as if it had been carved out of a bigger piece. One side looked dangerously pointy and its opposite broken.

"I suppose we are looking at the top of something that was bigger, once," Jones remarked.

"That thing looks sharp. Top of a weapon?"

"Could be."

Stark reached out and Jones caught him at the wrist.

"Don't touch it- not bare handed."

"You don't trust it."

"Obviously. Look better. Inside."

Stark stared at the little black rock, and became a bit nauseous again. Then he saw what Jones meant. In the stone, deep inside the blackness. Pinpricks of light were dancing- moving. Restlessly seeking.

This tiny little thing was indeed the Soulstone, a container of spirits.

And it was not empty.

* * *

**Notes and acknowledgements, also called: the boring bits. Read at your own risk.**

**Paramount Pictures, Marvel Entertainment and Marvel studio's own "Captain America, The First Avenger". Paramount Pictures, Lucasfilm ltd and Steven Spielberg own "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and the other Indy movies I've pilfered.**

**Somewhere in Greece is a muse laughing her socks off for sending me this story and causing me al the work to write it down, forcing me to take the blame for it but also graciously allowing me the credit.**

**In 'Captain America, the First Avenger' the Red Scull made a remark about Hitler seeking treasure in the desert, hitting my Indy-alarm button full force. I just HAD to intertwine the tale of my favorite archeologist with the one about my favorite futurist (Tony, not his dad) after that one. **

**One of the most wonderful things about Marvel is the way they 'play' with their own continuity and throw in an alternate universe every other year or so. I am aware that Dr. Jones' story was continued well into his old age with the television series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". But in the (video/dvd) release of said series they apparently cut out the old Indy who bookended the stories. Well, I thought, if canon can take that liberty, why not me? So should you find things amiss with how they are 'supposed to be' within the continuity of the movie/television-verses, please be kind and assume I'm not some ill informed crazy fan girl that does not know what she's writing about, but that I'm just another proud flag-bearer of the above mentioned honored tradition of alternate realities.**

**The 'crazy fan girl' denomination on its own however, is acceptable.**

**And yes- I did shamelessly pilfer the plot of season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, copyright Twentieth Century Fox. Joss Whedon FTW! If people did not want me to throw some of Whedon/Buffy into the mix, they should not have let this fantastic storyteller direct the Avengers movie. Duh! Complicated you ask? Well- less complicated than coming up with a sub-plot myself actually. I'm a good thief, I am. But thank you for asking.**


	2. Good Intentions

**For notes and acknowledgements (aka: the boring bits), see the end of the story please. **

THE ROAD TO HELL

2. Good intentions

"Back in my day, we did not have showers in our planes."

Refreshed, casually clothed in khaki slacks and a crème turtleneck, Stark dropped himself in the luxurious passenger chair across from Jones and waited a moment for one of the flight attendants to deck out his lunch for him on the little table in between their seats.

"You're really hamming up the old man routine, aren't you?"

"In part." Jones touched his hand to his glasses and pushed them a bit firmer on his nose, closed the booklet he had been researching and held up the little plastic cup, lid firmly closed, that held the innocuous black rock the two men had flown the breadth of America for twice in as many days. The frosted plastic hid he little lights inside the rock that looked like a child's collectible like this. He shook the cup and watch the stone rattle around.

Stark´s jet was a stylish affair, the inside decorated in clean whites and warm natural browns. The passenger cabin could hold eight at the most, had a little bar at the side and could be used as a movie theatre . In the back Stark had a bedroom with all the creature comforts, like that shower. And somewhere in the bowels of the plane he apparently housed a fully staffed kitchen. Jones knew a bit about airplanes, he had become a pilot in WWI, and to carry the water for a nice little shower was taking on a lot of dead weight you had to lift and carry. That cost engine power and fuel. So obviously, you also needed the capacity to store and carry the extra fuel. Besides all that and even much more impressive, was that the jet was some kind of supersonic affair that would bring him from Nevada to Connecticut in under two hours which was ridiculously fast. The aircraft looked like a big flying triangle with a downturned snout and was some kind of prototype Stark was haggling with various European governments about to sell them- even the Russians were involved it seemed. But there were problems with friction and aerodynamic heating, structural distortions caused by the high speeds and other things Jones had no knowledge of but really wished Stark had not elaborated on, just after they had taken off.

"A plane like this is going to kill you one day."

Stark just shrugged and chewed his salad and chicken. Jones already ate. He was tired but too high on adrenaline to actually sleep right now. He had lost track of time. Stark had come to him- what was it, last night? At about ten P.M. to demand him to come with and collect the cursed gem he now held. Jones had finished his research on it about a week ago and it was a sighn of Stark´s eagerness and impatience he had been able to drop everything on his schedule he was working on, for him, short notice. What had led to his wife having a fit and entering in that ridiculous bet that if she would drink Stark under the table, he would just leave and come back on Indy's own good time. Not being able to keep up with those two and well under a long time before they had finished, Jones noticed Marian had lost when three hours later she furiously threw both men out of her house, aiming the empty bottles at Stark's head in the hallway, which he ducked, and a half packed suitcase aimed at Jones' chest, which he caught with an 'oomph' while the force of the throw landed him on his backside. When he had pulled himself together and had left Stark waiting on the driveway to say goodbye and get his documents on the stone, Marian had made it very clear he either stay home or stay away for a few days because she was –that- furious with him for letting Stark walking all over him. Again. Jones had smiled at her and kissed her and fled her after collecting his books, and had told Stark he'd be staying with him at his New York Mansion for a couple of days. Jones had gotten some sleep in the plane on the way to Nevada, and in the Phantom Stark had waiting for them there at the airfield. Now it was about eleven A.M. Nevada time what meant they would arrive at Stark's mansion somewhere late afternoon New York time- He could still call Marian and apologize-and then drop dead for a few hours.

He was so whipped.

Stark had been rummaging in the briefcase at his feet, already consumed with paperwork from his company, and Jones attention moved from the stone to his friend and employer. CEO, inventor, the greatest engineer of his generation. Ladies man, war hero dash profiteer depending on your political views. Brat. Sorcerer apparently, if he ever wanted to commit himself to the occult. Family man, if he would ever give himself the chance. Stark looked up at him with a question in his eyes. Jones shrugged and rattled the cup a bit more. Stark turned back to his papers while he ate, and Jones to the documents he had collected on his little rock.

"So," Stark said, swallowing the last of his chicken and sinking back in his chair, nursing the Chardonnay that had come with their lunch, "what now?"

Jones held up the booklet with his notes. "Legend has it that soul stones are the crystals formed at the bottom of a well of hatred. Somewhere in the world in a place dedicated to all gods of evil, the earth spits out a drop of hatred every time a human being commits a notorious act."

Stark smiled, eyes drifting to the plastic cup. One of his attendants took his plate away and made herself scarce after a look of his, so the men where left alone to talk. "And every time a child lies a fairy dies."

Jones nodded with a slight grin. "True, but we have no proof of that." Stark toasted the notion and held his head to the side, listening attentively.

"To demon kind these wells are supposed to hold the finest ambrosia and they just drain them and they get drunk on it and nothing much happens. But when a human being sips from these waters, or even just touches them, all the fury, the madness and the power of the hatred poured into the well, will transfer into that human, and they will become a creature of pure hatred themselves. A demon, in effect. Supposedly immortal and crazily powerful. These crystals are what is left after the well is drained. You can only get to them after the well has been drained."

Stark nodded. "And once upon a time a long long time ago this happened and somewhere out there is an evil critter that once was human, and they left us this.", he said, indicating the cup.

"Not quite. There have always been special people in this world, heroes and saints and secret organizations, to ward off threats like that."

"People like Steve?"

"No, not really. Steve Rogers was a man made wonder. I'm talking about a kind of half-gods like Samson and Hercules and the brave ones who fought giants with God on their side like David. They pop up all through history. Young girls with extreme fighting skills, men like the wizard Merlin, Angels come down from heaven to fight dragons. Usually the myths speak off either the forces of good finding a way to deal with the demon, or more usual, finding a way to deal with the well before something earth shattering happens. Most of the time the saint or saintly figure is sacrificed in the struggle. Within the ancient Roman cult of Juventas there was a secretive branch that dedicated itself to seeking out these wells and dealing with them. Which they did quite successfully, actually. After one of these wells is destroyed, the Earth still needs to get rid of all the evil poured into her. Another one will take its place God knows where. But these people had found a way to deal and survive. Because apparently there is one good thing you can do with all the hatred in the world."

"Which is?"

"I have no idea. It's not recorded in any of my sources. Unfortunately, or at least for them, this offshoot of the Juventas cult became the guardians of the soulstones they found. I've found traces of contacts with other sects with whom they tried almost desperately to break the stones once they noticed that under certain circumstances a person's soul could be literally sucked into them. In the Scandinavian countries there was a sect dedicated to Baldur they apparently often consulted, and they had links to Tibet and Indonesia. But their temples were raided and the stones they guarded disappeared. This particular one was discovered in Greece at the dig in Herculaneum in the second half of the 17th century. It was stolen and made it's rounds through various satanic sects who were trying to use it, and saintly monasteries where the monks were trying to hide it. Until about seventy years ago a would be psychic in London stuck it to the end of a divining rod and claimed to be able to find missing persons with it. It did not work for him. The people he did find, were the people he had abducted by a street gang. But a real psychic, a certain police inspector by the name of Frederick Abberline, arrested the fraud and, with the divining rod, found a child the criminals had stowed away. Apparently he was also a very intelligent man, researched the instrument, made notes, got afraid of it and handed it over to some Free Mason contacts he had. Who eventually brought the douser to the USA were it got stuck in the warehouse where we took it from. People must have examined it, because the rod has disappeared."

Stark put down his now empty glass, picked up the plastic container, held it to the light from the window beside him and peered inside. All he could see was a black little stone with an nastily pointed side.

"It still looks like the top of a weapon to me. Not an arrowhead. Some odd slim spear of some sort."

"Could be. You have to bleed on it, again with the blood, to get inside of it."

"You better watch it with your hand then."

Jones looked at his now bandaged right hand and shrugged.

"It probably needs a ritual."

"But what is the purpose- I mean, it is a terrible device and an horrific notion that this unobtrusive looking little piece of rock can tear a man's soul away. That it might hold some poor lost souls inside right now. I can see the use as threat to ward of your enemies, but I cannot think of any practical applications."

"Life is force, power. Energy. It is said the energy that little thing contains can be used to give fuel and power to very dark magic."

"But you are talking about the transformation of energy. Like electricity to light, or in this case better put, coal to heat or movement. In which the original material is transformed and for all intent an purposes, lost."

"That was the biggest curse I found. If these people are used, they are used up. It is a complete and utter death. Nothing remains to either go to hell or heaven."

Stark shivered and made a face as if he'd eaten a lemon. He put the container down again.

"Can we free them?"

"No. I don't think so. Abberline tried. He entered in some meditative state and tried to project his mind inside. His idea was to act as a guide to the outside world so the imprisoned could escape through him. Apparently he did get some look inside, went mad from what he found and two weeks later they found him dead in some opium den. That was what the Hindu's of the time apparently had advised the Juventas Cult, hence the surviving records of the method. He wrote down what he found inside and I read it and it is an absolute nightmare of cold, loneliness and darkness. These people seem to be self-aware, but not of each other. They have been left alone in the dark for perhaps thousands of years. The Scandinavians of the Baldur sect were talking about exploding the stone with fire from the heavens."

"These guys were probably big with lightning, having a god of thunder and all. It might even work."

"What do you mean?"

"The ancients could not harness the power of electricity like we can. I can probably come up with generators strong enough to make the energy blast to crumble this- thing. Or imitate lightning if that is an absolute necessity. But the main question is, would we harm the people inside if we use it to find Steve?"

"It is a consideration, but I can find no evidence of it. Still, we have to be, very, very careful with this. There are a lot of sick people in the world who would not hesitate to come after us once it gets out we have it- And the holy ones would not exactly be too appreciative either, I guess."

"Not to mention the government."

"Noo- not to mention them."

"Jones- I know I have commissioned you to help me find a way to bring back Steve, but using a thing as diabolical and dangerous like this goes a bit beyond that."

Jones smiled. "You are a puzzle, Howard. I wanted to know why you wanted it so badly."

Stark tiredly sank back into his chair. "Well I told you, so now you do."

"I also owe him my life. Many people do."

"You admired him as much as I."

Jones pulled his ear absently and rubbed his face before he answered.

"If we do not find him, Rogers runs the risk of becoming a very interesting archeological artifact himself. In fact he's already half way there. You are a man touched by a vision that he is still alive- And from what I have seen you do back in that warehouse, you might even be right. You might have the right feelers for this. But when you came to me I took your commission because if he is just dead and all we'll ever find is his deep frozen corpse, then at least our generation will give him a decent burial because we remember what we owe him. I've been called just another graverobber a great many times in my career and not undeservedly. My successors might not be as considerate with the Captain's remains as you or I would be. And he deserves a hell of a lot better than ending up like some mummy in a museum."

The two men fell silent and stared at the innocent little plastic cup and the shadow within for a moment. Stark picked it up and hid the cup away in his briefcase, not to leave it in sight of even his own people, took to his papers again and Jones buried his nose in his notes, waiting for the plane to start it's decent.

Traffic caused the men to arrive later than the doctor had anticipated and Jones felt wrung out when Stark´s limo finally pulled up at his New York Fifth Avenue mansion. The house was an impressive affair, a city block wide, including the gardens, three stories high. It was build just before WWI and set in stone that lit up a sweet pastel yellow in the afternoon sun. The grounds were circled by a high thick wall with a tall iron gate at the front and a solid steel sliding door at the back, that opened up to the underground garage. Where the two men were awaited by a matching set of uniformed young gentlemen who busied himself with their luggage. Stark's male secretary was just leaving the lift at the other side of the basement and hurried over to his boss, checking his clipboard and babbling about missed meetings and contracts that needed to be signed.

Jones had noted Stark always surrounded himself with people. People who cooked and cleaned for him. Who guarded his home and safety. Who polished his cars and his shoes and made sure he kept his appointments. The bodyguards were white and the maids were black. Jones, who for all his patriotism, was more a man of the World than of any nation, had learned long ago that the worth of a man, or woman for that matter, lay in their actions, not their tone of skin. His travels and cultural studies had broadened his mind to a place where he truly could not care less. Captain America had been the commander of a racially mixed group of soldiers, possibly the only one at the time, giving Jones the impression Rogers had been of a same mind as he was. To be honest, he had been too busy running for his life to think about anything much during his misadventure with the Howling Commando´s. But it had given him pause in later years, when at times he, albeit in a modest way, added his own voice to the chorus for racial equality and had been very supportive of black students at his university. And silently wondered what the Captain might have made of burning crosses.

Stark, for all his futurism, was still very much a man grown from the thirties and though his own travels had brought him to war-torn Europe in his younger years, he now usually did not see more of a foreign country than an airstrip and a boardroom. Western Science was dominated by white Anglo-Saxon males and Stark simply did not have the toolbox, so to speak, to look past ingrained every day racism. He secured his staff's loyalty unconsciously with his natural charm, and consciously by overpaying them. He did not reason beyond his own needs and could not care less that his money helped black kids through college. He just needed to be able to blindly trust he would be taken care of like the true modern-day aristocrat he was. World-politics were his field. And as long as either side of the struggle for equality did not resort to massive terrorism with bombs in public places, that struggle was of very little importance to him.

With half his mind buried in work already, Stark appointed one of his people to play valet to his houseguest and Jones found himself escorted to the upper levels of the house and to a suite of rooms on the second floor where his luggage had been brought. The servant started to unpack for him and told the doctor that dinner would be at eight. Jones threw down his hat on a chair, kicked of his shoes and asked where the phone was. It was only half past six, so sock-footed he rang Marian and explained to her he was staying in New York, while tugging off his tie. He apologized and she told him to bring his ass to her back in one piece because she worried about him. Smiling he rung off, fell face down on the four-poster and did not wake until ten and he was hungry.

Refreshed from sleep and a quick wash-and-shave in the en-suite bathroom, Jones made his way to the kitchen, his notes in an old and saggy leather briefcase on the stone. It was not the first time he spend a few days at the mansion and he was familiar with its routine. The female staff and the old gardener would have gone to their respective homes . The butler, the chef, most of the guards and the driver would have retreated to their bedrooms on the third floor. Two men made hourly rounds through the building and the grounds and there was a third operative manning the security camera's in a safe-room across the hall from Stark's study. There was a valet on call in the kitchen for as long as Stark would be awake and working and might demand refreshments.

Jones was more used to snooping around in houses like this, so his first reaction when he heard voices coming toward him was to look for cover- but he relaxed, shook his head and when two bulky young men in tastefully neutral suits rounded the corner and entered his part of the hallway, they politely wished each other a good evening and he felt more than a bit silly.

"Jarvis is waiting for you in the kitchen with your supper Sir. Mister Stark has requested your presence when you are ready." Suit One told him. Did he know where the kitchen was? Jones nodded and made his way, glad off the familiarity. Marian might have been insulted that he was directed to the kitchen to eat, guest as he was in this house. But to Jones it meant he was trusted.

The kitchen was large enough to serve a middle-sized restaurant and still capable to allow a table where all the staff could comfortably eat at lunchtime. Modern electric stoves had replaced the their gas using counterparts, but they were still standing under an old brick arch that housed and hid the modern cooker hood. Old-fashioned cupboards lined the walls and showed crockery, shining copper pots ready to be used were stowed away on shelves. Fresh herbs grew in pots in the windowsill and Jones had the odd feeling that the kitchen was one of the few places in this house that actually lived.

At the table reading the New York Times and with a cup of coffee at his elbow, sat the footman Edwin Jarvis who readily stood and moved to one of the ovens.

"Good evening, Sir. I've taken the liberty of keeping a plate hot for you."

"Thank you, mister Jarvis."

"Just Jarvis please, Sir."

Jarvis was a special one and Jones had remembered him. The footman was a born and bred Brooklyn boy with an odd British accent he told people he picked up in London during the war. He was round faced and balding, probably about Stark's age but somehow one could not really tell and there was an edge behind his unflappable demeanor. He was a not a tall man and easily overlooked, but Jones had the sad suspicion this guy could be more dangerous with a duster than any bodyguard with a gun. Some people you just did not ask what they had seen during the hard times. Especially when you already had enough nightmares of your own.

So he sat, put his briefcase down near his feet and allowed him to be served some excellent veal dish and weirdly felt a bit like the young boy he once was, sitting at the kitchen table of his elderly neighbor who acted as the honorary neighborhood grandmum and fed all the kids waffles.

Creepy,

The little stone was very definitely creepy.

His work abandoned, Howard Stark had taken the plastic cup and placed it in front of him on his wide desk. For the last fifteen minutes he had been staring at the damned thing now, and he just knew it was staring back at him. He was growing impatient for Jones to wake up, for something to happen. He had not wanted to have the archeologist woken for dinner for he had seemed dog-tired. So he ate alone, made short work of his meal and went back to work again. But he had had it now. He rose, shuffled the papers on his desk into an unruly stack, stuck them into a folder, opened a desk drawer and threw the folder in almost without looking. At the other side of his study was a special case where Stark kept the sheaths with the nautical maps he had used in his search for the Captain. He walked over, hesitated and took the one with the smallest scale, showing the largest stretch of the Arctic and rolled it out over his desk. It immediately curled up, and with a little flip of the map's corner, dumped the cup onto the floor where it rolled under the desk. Cussing Stark went on his knees, grabbed blindly and retrieved the damn thing. Carefully he placed the cup at the far side of his desk, rolled the map out again and used his desk lamp to secure a corner, a rather colorful paperweight for the next and fought the telephone cord to move the telephone on the third. Pushing down the fourth he reached blindly behind him and caught some book from the bookcase at his back. It was red, something about economics and would do fine. Stark took the cup, removed the lid, rattled the cup as if it were a dicebox and let the stone fly over the map. It just rolled where the motion took it, too far north to be a reasonable site to go look. Stark fell back into his wheeled desk chair and drifted back a little

"Like that would help," he muttered.

Something inside the little stone moved, But it had to be a trick of the light. Stark reached over and put out the desk lamp. Definitely something moving. He switched the lamp on again and went to the door of his study to throw the two switches that controlled the ceiling lamp and the scones against the walls. Only the floorlamp near the window in the far corner and the one on his desk were still lit, and the latter he switched off when he seated himself. The white paper of the map threw too much of a reflection. Using his letteropener Stark carefully moved the stone back into the cup, pushed the book and the phone away and helped the map curl in on itself. He turned the cup on the green leather inlay of his desk what made the black thing almost invisible in the darkened room. The tiny pinpricks of light inside the stone however, shone brightly.

Stark leaned his elbows on his desk, chair rolled back a little and lay his chin on his wrists. His narrowed eyes were almost at the same level as the dancing lights.

"Who are you?" he whispered. Trying to imagine what it had to be like inside. A prison of total darkness.

There were patterns inside. Some dots went up and down and up and down, some drew lazy circles, an others shot wildly round as if out of control. One of the lights pulsed. Like breathing in, and breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out. In. Out.

In.

Out.

The longer Stark looked, the more dots he saw, he could not count them anymore.

In.

Out.

-HELP ME-

Stark shot up with a sharp intake of breath. His chair rammed the bookcase behind him and a book fell with a dull thud on the floor. Trembling, one hand on his chest and the other for support on the desk, Stark tried to get his breath under control again. Something had touched him. A voice had reached out inside his head. He had not heard it, he could swear, and yet it had been there.

Stark swallowed. "Okay-" he said. "Okay I hear you."

There was nothing. Silence. Sounds of the house and traffic outside.

Stark's breath went heavy and he felt as if he'd been running for hours.

"How can I help?"he whispered to the darkness. Nothing came back to him.

Stark grabbed the armrests of his chair and pulled it back under him. "So what just happened-", he reasoned. He had been staring into the stone, concentrating on the stone. No- not the rock. The darkness of it pushed him away and whatever it was he touched just now had not been pushing, it had been reaching. One of the little dots had noticed him. Stark felt like Christmas come early, exited and thrilled. One of the ghosts inside had found him. He concentrated again on the flickering lights and formulated the question inside his head this time.

-How can I help?-

All movement stopped. The dots stilled and the stone lit from the inside like a diamond caught in sunlight.

-OUT-

A clear spike of pain shot through Stark's mind.

-Not so loud- please, You are too loud!-

-OUT-, the voice repeated and Stark shook his head, blindly pushed himself away from the desk and broke away violently. His lamp fell, the phone rattled to the ground with a ping and the rolled up map made a swipe over the desk to land on the other side. There was a wetness on his face.

"Too loud-" he whispered. He stumbled away from the desk, stood dazed and fought his way to the door, sluggish, on feet of clay. He threw the door to the hall open and the light spilled in. For a moment he just hung in the doorway, catching his breath. Bringing a hand to his face and staring at it when it came away bloodied.

"Damn!"

A nosebleed. And yes- some drops had already soiled his front. Angrily Stark looked back at his darkened study and his desk and the mess he made but could not see clearly. He pinched his nose closed and craned his neck. With a snap he threw the switch beside the door and the lights came back on. Awkwardly with his head back he went to the bathroom two doors down the hall, put the door on its hook, and fumbled for the faucet. The water started running and he let go of his nose to wash his face. The cool water made him shiver and he felt like waking. What the hell just happened in there?

Stark dried his face and his hands. Water had spattered over his chest. He wetted a corner of the towel and dabbed at the blood on his clothing, but that only made the stains bigger. Annoyed, the engineer turned off the water, threw the towel in the sink, looked at himself in the mirror, straighten himself and drew back his shoulders.

"Okay, that was a mistake. Let's not do that again."

Stark sniveled a bit an felt his nose but the bleeding had stopped and he was fine, just bloody annoyed. He would put the rock back in its cup and be done with it until Indy woke up and somebody who had an idea on how to handle the damn thing could make sense of this little mess. At least he had found out that something inside was clearly conscious of itself- and they just might be able to communicate with it. That had to count.

Stark returned to his study, surveyed the mess he made with his hands in his sides, picked up his phone and put the hook in its cradle. Picked up the map, rolled it op tight and put it back in its protective covering. He laid it down over the desk, straightened his lamp and switched it on, but something had broke and it refused to light. Stark picked up the plastic container- but the stone was not there. Not sitting in the middle of his desk where he had left it. He rolled his eyes, went to his hands and knees, ass in the air, an peered under the desk. Yup- there it was just almost out of reach in the middle. He pushed his arm under as far as it would go, ticked the stone with the tips of his fingers a bit towards him and finally closed his fist around it.

"Gotcha!" he said.

-YES-

**Notes and acknowledgements, also called: the boring bits. Read at your own risk.**

**Darn, this chapter fought back!**

**Paramount Pictures, Marvel Entertainment and Marvel studio's own "Captain America, The First Avenger". Paramount Pictures, Lucasfilm ltd and Steven Spielberg own "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and the other Indy movies I've pilfered. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (as Twentieth Century Fox) and Underworld Entertainment (as Underworld Pictures) own "From Hell" from which inspector Frederick Abberline was lifted.**

**Somewhere in Greece is a muse laughing her socks off for sending me this story and causing me al the work to write it down, forcing me to take the blame for it but also graciously allowing me the credit.**

**In 'Captain America, the First Avenger' the Red Scull made a remark about Hitler seeking treasure in the desert, hitting my Indy-alarm button full force. I just HAD to intertwine the tale of my favorite archeologist with the one about my favorite futurist (Tony, not his dad) after that one. **

**One of the most wonderful things about Marvel is the way they 'play' with their own continuity and throw in an alternate universe every other year or so. I am aware that Dr. Jones' story was continued well into his old age with the television series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". But in the (video/dvd) release of said series they apparently cut out the old Indy who bookended the stories. Well, I thought, if canon can take that liberty, why not me? So should you find things amiss with how they are 'supposed to be' within the continuity of the movie/television-verses, please be kind and assume I'm not some ill informed crazy fan girl that does not know what she's writing about, but that I'm just another proud flag-bearer of the above mentioned honored tradition of alternate realities.**

**The 'crazy fan girl' denomination on its own however, is acceptable.**

**And yes- the 'the young girls with extreme fighting skills' Indy mentions, are in fact, Slayers. Or at least the way I imagine myself Buffy's predecessors, pilfered from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, copyright Twentieth Century Fox. Joss Whedon FTW! If people did not want me to throw some of Whedon/Buffy into the mix, they should not have let this fantastic storyteller direct the Avengers movie! Duh! **


	3. Coffee and Pansies

**For notes and acknowledgements (aka: the boring bits), see the end of the story please.**

* * *

3. Coffee and Pansies

* * *

Dark and black and gone and dark and cold but I´m outside not in there I´m outside I´m outside I´m OUT.

Stark sat on the floor with his back against his desk staring deeply into the tiny carbuncle he held close to his face that called to him and sang to him and showed him a thousand lifetimes all at once. And it was cold and it was brilliant and it was knowledge but it was not truth for all the voices shouted their own truth and there was no way he could pick one. They were all right and all wrong and so very very lost and he cried without sound his tears simply rolling of his cheeks and he swallowed and he did not know how to help.

He could not even pick one. Not even one. They came to him and slipped around him. There were images of happiness and grief and just life and everything being stolen away by endless time.

Behind it, behind all of it a promise of power. Raw and sweet and so, so very dark but his, only his. Rightfully his. He only had to reach for it.

And he saw towers build and empires stretching and dead comrades come to life and all that he ever could love protected for the small price of a torn soul.

But it was not truth. He had seen truth. Truth was not black. Truth was a frozen blue sky and its song was alien and proud and unwavering. He called to the blue light and remembered it and brought it to the forefront of his mind, let it grow a wall against the darkness he could pull behind. Separate himself.

He wanted to throw it away, the coal in his hand. He could not. He barely managed to turn his opened hand so the stone could slide from his palm and the world came back for him.

"Dear God." Stark whispered , wide-eyed, sweat running from his brow and over his back, tickling and real and human. He pulled up his knees, closed his arms around them like a hiding child and stared down at the black thing next to his feet, mind reeling, ears ringing with a high note he could not shake.

He could not be seen like this. Could not be found like this, meddling like a fool with something that required no electricity or transistors. This thing could not be used. But this thing had to be used. For what if. What if this was the Key to the tomb of the hero?

Slowly, trembling, stark stood , pulling himself up. Jones would be here soon. But all he had to do was reach out, bend over.

"I'm not bending knee to you! Whatever you are- whatever made you- It's not getting me!" Stark's hoarse voice won strength with speaking. He looked for the cup and his letter opener, got on his haunches and with one swift flick of his wrist, shot the stone home. He stood too fast and black spots flickered in and out of his vision and he had to steady himself against the nausea. An odd high note rang inside of him, just at the edge of his hearing, and he shook his head- what really did not help, and he felt bile rising in his throat. He plunked the beaker down and left it, sitting on his desk like something innocent, to quickly go change his sweater.

* * *

Some heroes die with a bang. Some do not even get their whimper. Warriors dream of combat and a sword in their hands, blood in their eyes, madly and defiantly grinning at their foe. Soldiers might dream of a blaze of glory and taking as many of those bastards with them as they could. And those who live their life as an adventure and always on the edge, who have survived the judgments of gods and the hells of war, unconceivable drops, poisons, sickness, curses, blast and the sea- Men like that should die for a reason in some grand self-sacrificing act, believing losing their life to be a worthy price for the defeat of the obstacle in their way. Over the top, larger than life.

They are not supposed to die in the study of a friend, waiting for their after-dinner coffees.

When Jones entered Stark's study, he came with a smile on his face, his briefcase in his hand, dressed like a university professor in his tweed and glasses. He found the engineer deconstructing his desklamp, pale faced with shaking hands and that third change of clothes had to be excessive even for a billionaire. Stark did not look up at his entrance, so he remained silent, closed the door and looked around for a chair to pull up. Now Stark seemed to notice him, and waved him closer while he stood himself. He started to speak, hesitantly, trying to keep a tight rein on his composure and almost succeeding.

"So- eh- Yeah well I have this map from the Arctic just above Greenland, and I though, since we have no douser, we could put the stone on a piece of string to make a pendulum of some sort-"

Stark shoveled the stuff on his desk around to make space, turned with a sheath in his hand and started to pull out a map. By now he feared his eardrums had been damaged- perhaps the earlier blood had been indicative of a more serious problem than a mere ruptured blood vessel in his nose. The high note was still there and, although he could hear perfectly, it made it hard for Stark to understand the words said to him.

"You've been thinking about it then." Jones said slowly, frowning a bit and putting down the briefcase.

Stark looked up, looked the doctor in the eye a moment and bowed his head, leaning heavily on his knuckles on the desk.

"I touched it." he blurted.

"You what?"Jones answered, startled.

Stark put his chin out, defiantly. "It fell on the floor. Rolled under here somewhere, and I picked it up. And I just had to look into in- and something looked back."

"Where is it." Jones was all business now. Stark motioned at the desk and Jones picked up the opened cup. "Where is the lid?"

"The lid?" Stark blinked- the sound got really annoying after a while.

"Yes Howard." Jones spoke slowly, as if he thought Stark drunk and uncomprehending while setting the cup down carefully. "The lid. The lid of this cup- the lid you should under no circumstances have removed! Where is it!"

"Must have fallen too."

"You have tried something already haven't you? What exactly did you do- You were sick again weren't you?"

"No- what makes you think that!"

"The shirt!"

"Nosebleed- I looked inside and it hurt." It still did.

Jones had to take a few steadying breaths. "That thing had you crawling on a dirty warehouse floor while you puked your guts out and you thought it was a bright idea to try anything? Not to mention try it alone?"

A spike of white pain burned through his head. Stark felt his temper flare. "And you are the guy with the knowledge and all the answers- so why the hell did you bring me in contact with it in the first place, doctor!"

"Because you asked me!"

"That is no excuse!"

"Howard- I ask you again- what did you do. What did it do to you? And hear yourself talking man- get yourself together!."

Being terribly childish and not giving ad damn, really longing for some aspirin and a drink and not caring in what order or caring mixing medication and liquor might not being a good idea, Stark grabbed the cup and made a swipe in the air so the stone few out in a lazy arc towards Jones.

"See for yourself!"

"Jesus!"

Jones, knowing better than to try and catch, suppressed the instinct to do just that, stepped aside, stumbled over his briefcase, lost his footing and threw out his hands to catch himself. His undressed hand caught the stone right where it had landed, pointy end up. Jones cried out, more of horror than pain and stared at his palm where the carbuncle had imbedded itself in the meaty mound below his thumb.

"Howard…" he said, meekly, almost begging, on his knees holding his bleeding hand up with the other.

That was when Jarvis threw open the door without knocking, having heard noises that seemed like a fight and prepared to defend his employer, tray with coffee and cookies balancing on one hand.

The white hot poker in his mind left only an empty echo of pain the instant Jones hurt himself. In three long strides Stark was at Jones' side and knelt with him, taking Jones' wounded hand in both of his, while Jarvis quickly set his tray aside and stood close in case the doctor should keel over.

"Shall I get a first-aid kit Sir? Or need I call medical assistance?"

Stark did not answer, just looked in the wide eyes of his friend. Jones opened his mouth to scream, but there was no sound. This pupils were blown and his face went terribly red. He made choking sounds as if to speak, but was unable to get the air out of his lungs and Stark turned Jones's hand to pry the damn stone lose. Jones involuntarily pulled away violently, caught in uncontrollable spasms. Before either man holding on to him could effectively help, all muscles in his body tensed, then went limp. Life drained from the wide open eyes and a dark patch spread over the doctor's crotch. Like a marionette with all strings cut.

"Jarvis, call an ambulance!"

"Right away sir."

Stark noticed Jones was breathing still and gently rolled him on his side so the unconscious man would not choke in his own tongue.

The man from the booth across from the study appeared in the doorway, coming towards the racket. He heard the word 'ambulance' saw he could do nothing Stark or Jarvis were not doing already and whipped out his radio, called the patrolling guards and directed them to the front gate to await the medical personnel and guide them to the study. Stark heard him waking and warning other members of the household- but he did not much care. His people knew what they were doing. He took his handkerchief and quickly pulled the stone from Jones' hand, bloodied and slippery even as it was but a small wound. Jones did not even twitch. The bodyguard was looking the other way, into the hall, but Jarvis had seen him do it. Stark did not ask where the first-aid kit had come from that quickly. The footman cleaned and dressed the wound efficiently, giving minor first aid were they had no idea what to do about the major injury.

"The other hand too."

"Sir?"

Stark's voice and eyes were cold. "Redress his other hand. Quickly."

Jarvis obeyed and within moments both Jones's hands were bandaged exactly the same way. His cabin personnel of his jet could bear witness Jones had entered the plane with minor injuries. This had not happened here. Now if they could redirect the medic's attention to the doctor's head and heart, there was a slim chance it would be believed he had received the wounds in his palms at the same time and not some hours apart. Stark nor Jarvis would mention it, Stark would see to that. Later.

The stone in his pocket burned, but that was only his conscience making itself known. Stark moved to close the wide open eyes, but Jarvis stopped him.

"No Sir, the physicians must receive him as we found him."

Stark looked his man in the eye. He was a good man, Jarvis was. He would reward him well for this- and they understood each other.

"As we found him. I'll tell them exactly what happened."

"Pity I missed that. I cannot give any information that might prove helpful. I'm so sorry Sir."

Over the normal din of traffic outside, sirens made themselves known, and came closer.

Howard found out he really was a coward when he had Jarvis make the call to Marian, but he made sure to be at the hospital when she arrived in one of his company cars. She was so very, very beautiful with her dark eyes and dark long hair pulled up in a neat bun and the dignity with which she held herself. Her dress and coat were simple and elegant and the same pale violet that was not her color so it had to be something her Indy liked. Marian walked up to him and held his eye and he knew that he'd be turned to ashes if he looked away now or showed any sign of guilt.

"Where is he?" she asked in a painfully toneless voice, turning from him and allowed a nurse to guide her. Stark followed, his bodyguards, and now Jarvis too, at his heels.

Jones's face lay caught in the center of a web of lines and tubes going in to his nose and mouth. Electrodes were stuck to his temples, wrist, chest. There was a bag with disgusting fluids hanging from the side near his midsection and on the other side of the bed stood a stand with several bags dangling from it for the drip attached to the inside of his elbow. Everybody who neared the bed did that stupid little dance to avoid those. They had tied his tongue to the side of his mouth to allow the tube of the ventilator to go into his throat unobstructed what made him look like an idiot. The heartmonitor gave a healthy amount of slow beeps, for as far as Howard understood anything of medicine. He could probably build a machine like that in his sleep yet never understand the readouts.

Stark had made sure there were flowers.

Marian stood in the doorway of the sickroom a moment, taking it all in. The bed, the flowers on the sideboard, the table and the four chairs near the window. The nurse in her white and blue uniform and sensible shoes a half step behind a neutral looking physician in his white coat over a brown suit. Stethoscope at his throat, clipboard in hand. She went in slowly, ignoring them both. Her fingers trailed over the bandages on Jones's hand, the free skin of his arm while she tilted her head to the side, just looking at his face, and she bent over to whisper something to him and kiss his brow. After a moment she stood, looked over the bed at the physician and asked calmly: "What the bloody fucking hell happened to my husband?"

The physician thank god was one of those men who talked people, not some medical Latin, and answered kindly.

"Misses, Jones. I'm Doctor Reece, and I am the lead physician of the team treating your husband. We think he suffered a massive stroke. We cannot be quite sure, not yet. But it seems most likely there was an obstruction in the brain that blocked the bloodflow and resulted in his collapse."

"When will he wake up?" Marian said in that same neutral voice, while sitting down on the chair next to the bed. She straitened her skirt and took Jones's hand. The physician took a few moments too long to answer and she looked up sharply.

"How massive was this 'stroke'."

"We don't know yet. There are a number of test we will have to perform until we are absolutely sure about the amount of damage done."

A tremor ran through Marian, she pinched her lips, took a deep, steadying breath, clenched her jaws and sucked in air until she relaxed enough to speak. Stark wanted to go to her, put a hand on her shoulder, be there, but a discreet hand on his arm made him spin and he found Jarvis right behind him, giving but one shake of his head. Stark gave a nod, closed his eyes a moment and kept back.

Marian's voice came out strangled.

"Will- he wake up?"

Doctor Reece kept himself as neutral as the beige drapes besides the window. "In cases like this, we, unfortunately, must find it prudent not to be optimistic. I'm very sorry."

Marian made a choked sound and there were tears now, still held back, not yet falling. She sought Jones's face and her fingertips touched his cheek beside the indentation from the respiration tube.

"Indy- "she said in a small voice and this time Stark did not hold back, stepped behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She did not look up.

"Indy don't do this to me you bastard. I'm going to have to call Mutt home now an you know how he hates being called back. You can't leave me now- not like this- this is stupid. This is not happening. This can't be happening to you."

She looked up at the person offering comfort, turned and her eyes held such fury when she found the billionaire, he involuntarily stepped back. She nodded at the sideboard.

"Are those your flowers?"

"Yes- I," he stumbled, unsure about Marian's change of pace, from tightly held together, to grief to furious- she went too fast for him.

"Take them away."

"But- they are just flowers- I,"

"Indy does not like yellow flowers. And he hates white ones. He likes the pansy's in the garden, did you know? That Indiana Jones likes his silly little purple flowers? Take them away."

"Marian…"

Marian Jones-Ravenwood, with the blazing eyes that had held back the barbaric drunks in her tavern, and the attitude to fight SS spies and Russian soldiers, stood and bared her teeth,

"Get your fucking flowers the hell out of here, Stark- Because I don't want him to wake up to –your- fucking flowers, you jack-ass shitfaced son of a bitch! You did this to him, you hypocrite! I don't know what it was or how it was done, but you did this to him. Because Indiana fucking Jones does not die of something as normal and –inane- as a stroke!"

The fire went out of her as she fell down in the chair again, staring at her Indiana's face, hands in her lap, swaying a little from side to side.

"It just is not supposed to happen this way. Not now- not so soon-"she whimpered, not gracing anybody with even a glance.

Stark took a deep breath, turned, and left. He clenched his fists- He wanted to help, to act- to repair something. But there was no way. He turned to his footman.

"Jarvis- Take away those damn flowers and give them to the nurses- somebody in this hospital will appreciate them. Then, -if- misses Jones would like to avail herself of your company or services, I would like you to stay with her- at least until her son arrives.

"Yes Sir." Jarvis made his little bow to him and Stark left, eyes high and chin up. However angry Marian was with him, however suspicious and quite rightly so, she could easily be dealt with as an intensely desperate grieving soon to be widow looking for answers the medical profession and science in general were helpless to provide. Sooner or later either she or her son- Jones' son, would ask about his hands- but he already had the story in his mind.

Jones did have influential friends, especially in academia. But among his equals, fellow archeologists and historians, were many who thought him a bit crazy and would never believe the stone he held in his breast-pocket could even exist. If there were people who suspected a supernatural cause of Jones' condition, it were either old men in the backward regions of the earth who had once upon a time taken part in the doctor's exploits, or Henry 'Mutt' Jones Jr. And the latter was still a very young man, who in spite of being an inventive and courageous one, had not spend his younger days gathering courage in trenches or dangling from the wings of airplanes, but at playing mechanic and trying to impress the world by looking 'cool'. Mutt was working on his own doctorate in archeology now, but he would never be the man his father was. Had been. Stark would be able to handle him.

And if push came to shove, so would his lawyers.

Stark did not return to the hospital. Marian had sent Jarvis back to him, preferring solitude above any of his, made her own hotel arrangements and simply waited for Mutt to turn up. Stark had Jarvis clean out Jones' room at the mansion and had his suitcase and hat delivered at Marian's hotel.

He studied Jones's notes, retained the information and penned down a summary for his own use. Although he understood the words, he had no real inkling of their meaning. He would be able to ape them though. To sound as if he knew what he was talking about.

Two days into Jones's hospitalization, Jones Jr. found his way to Stark mansion. Stark handed Mutt the briefcase with the notes, the stone in its cup and, together with his regrets, lies. He told the younger man how Stark during the war had come in contact with artifacts that had broadened his mind, had made him believe in the truth behind legends and how he became accepting of the occult. How he in essence had hired Indiana to search for an artifact that could find Captain America. How over the years Jones had provided, but that neither man had succeeded in Stark's goal. How Jones had sent him message of an artifact at the Nevada military base but a few short days ago. How Jones had fallen ill during their search and had blacked out while Stark took the little crate from the mountain of crates. How Jones had hurt his hands in his impatience to open the little box and how he had been fascinated by the stone. How Stark had been willing to use it at the end of a stick or dangling from a rope over a map, and how Jones had been eager to experiment. Stark spoke of leaving the study but for a few moments and returning to find the doctor convulsing on the floor.

Dr. Henry Walton 'Indiana' Jones died on a rainy Tuesday afternoon at half past three without regaining consciousness, officially after suffering a severe stroke in the week leading up to his passing. He died because his kidney's gave out and his body poisoned itself on his medication. The New York Times ran an small obituary on him, but only gave the facts of his academic career. The article did make note of the wildly varied people who were in attendance at the funeral.

* * *

Stark had been strongly disinvited to attend.

* * *

Mutt was seen wearing Indiana's hat.

* * *

**Notes and acknowledgements, also called: the boring bits. Read at your own risk.**

**Paramount Pictures, Marvel Entertainment and Marvel studio's own "Captain America, The First Avenger". Paramount Pictures, Lucasfilm ltd and Steven Spielberg own "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and the other Indy movies I've pilfered. **

**Somewhere in Greece is a muse laughing her socks off for sending me this story and causing me al the work to write it down, forcing me to take the blame for it but also graciously allowing me the credit.**

**In 'Captain America, the First Avenger' the Red Scull made a remark about Hitler seeking treasure in the desert, hitting my Indy-alarm button full force. I just HAD to intertwine the tale of my favorite archeologist with the one about my favorite futurist (Tony, not his dad) after that one. **

**One of the most wonderful things about Marvel is the way they 'play' with their own continuity and throw in an alternate universe every other year or so. I am aware that Dr. Jones' story was continued well into his old age with the television series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". But in the (video/dvd) release of said series they apparently cut out the old Indy who bookended the stories. Well, I thought, if canon can take that liberty, why not me? So should you find things amiss with how they are 'supposed to be' within the continuity of the movie/television-verses, please be kind and assume I'm not some ill informed crazy fan girl that does not know what she's writing about, but that I'm just another proud flag-bearer of the above mentioned honored tradition of alternate realities.**

**The 'crazy fan girl' denomination on its own however, is acceptable.**


	4. All the Beautifull Sounds of the World

**For notes and acknowledgements (aka: the boring bits), see the end of the story please.**

* * *

THE ROAD TO HELL

4. All the beautiful sounds of the world

* * *

"Why am I here again?"

Obadiah Stane exited the limousine, tugged at the front of his black tux and fumbled with his bowtie. Obviously the young fresh faced Harvard graduate was not used to playing with the big boys yet, or walking around in their uniform. His striking light blue eyes usually had a piercing intelligence behind them. Right now he was just nervous.

Stark put down his whiskey and clambered out the limousine, rounded the car, batted the young man's hands from his chin, straightened the tie and smiled at him.

"You are here because tonight this is where you taste triumph, my friend."

"Yes sir."

"Oh dammit, shut it with the 'sir' will you? Say 'yes Howard.' "

"Yes Howard."

"Okay- you look fine. Excellent. You made the plan, you made the deal, your victory. Now let's gloat, let's have a couple of drinks and let's get the hell out of here."

In spite of being almost thirty years the senior, Howard Stark was the more boyish of the two men, even as the mask of ´business tycoon´ settled over him. His flashy maroon dinner jacket and bowtie would make him impossible to miss in any crowd, while he led his young associate up the steps of an excessive Westchester mansion done in some neo classic style with useless pillars at the front and too many French windows. While their chauffer removed the limousine from the driveway, the next expensive car with expensive guests rolled in over the gravel.

The large marble hall opening up to the two men held a crowd of colorful women in wide flowing dresses glittering with jewelry, accompanied by penguins. Some men had dared a white diner jacket instead of black and one of those immediately attacked Stark with open arms and a fake smile, even before he had been able to greet their host.

This would be a long evening. Stane had to save his employer twice before they had made it halfway through the hall and Stark had hissed to him to pretend to be in heavy conversation with him and to stride with purpose.

"Oh my word, who is that." Howard lifted a glass of champagne from a passing tray and stared across the hall to the lovely young lady at his host's side. Probably not a natural blonde, swan neck, olive skinned, full lips, high cheekbones and a cute little tip-tilted nose. The girl seemed to have a taste for simple yet elegant jewelry in contrast to the many gold decked females here. She wore a glittering dark green sleeveless, almost backless gown, a sight making his pants uncomfortably tight in places. Stane shook his head and snorted.

"That is the daughter of our host whose twenty-first birthday we are supposedly here to celebrate. By the way, how drunk are you already exactly?"

For once Howard was on time for one of these little soirees where the rich and famous came to be seen and businessmen like him made more deals, mostly of the shady kind, then they did in the boardroom. His timeliness was due mainly because Stane had accompanied him tonight to the Westchester estate to seal the deal between their host and Stark Industries. Or perhaps he had accompanied Stane- he was a bit fuzzy about that right now. The birthday girl looked as bored with the whole affair as he was. She stood in front of the dais of the doubled stairs with a practiced smile on her face, receiving well-wishers and being introduced to a rather large number of able bodied young men radiating eligible bachelorhood. Stark wondered if those young gentlemen would be so eager to marry the little half Italian Catholic heiress, had they realized the takeover by Stark Industries of her father's mining companies were the only thing that would keep her family from bankruptcy. Stark and Stane had known it all too well, since they had orchestrated said bankruptcy. Their company needed steel and they needed it cheap.

Stark eyed his already empty flute. "To survive this? Not nearly drunk enough."

Stane narrowed his eyes at the father-daughter pair. "She –is- cute. She's also less than half your age."

Harold shrugged. "She's cute, she's legal, she's game." He chuckled. "Do you want her?"

"Did I mention she's Carbonell's daughter? Pleasure and business do not mix in my opinion."

Stark sighed. "Live a little, kid- besides, how desperate again is Carbonell for that little deal we're making him to save his ass?"

"Very."

"So?"

"So he might just kick you in the balls for deflowering his daughter instead of getting his shotgun to blow your brains out."

"Deflowering? Have you even-looked- at the girl? I'll eat my hat if that's a virgin."

Howard picked up another flute of champagne from a passing waiter, while dropping his empty one.

"Keep that up," said Stane with a nod to the glass, "and you won't- erm- keep 'it' up." Howard just laughed.

"Come on, let's go wish the kid many returns. "

"Lead on."

Her name was Maria and it sang through Stark's blood like a Leonard Bernstein tune. He gave her the glad eye when he kissed her fingertips as her father introduced them to each other, and his little lopsided smile and charming voice had the effect they always had on women. He understood immediately that the fact her father did not seem to like him very much made him all the more attractive to the little debutante.

The evening through he made sure to stay in her line of sight, coincidentally looking up and her in the eye when he suspected she was watching him and when their eyes met, he held hers just those few seconds too long. They never spoke. Stark was constantly swarmed by people who wanted. A deal, a connection, influence through his influence and every hello was politics with an insincere smile and so he danced this well rehearsed number where he spoke a lot yet said nothing.

The party had moved from the hall to a ballroom, where the crystal chandeliers glittered endlessly in the two mirror covered walls and most people just stood around and talked, waiting to be served their caviar and champagne. Some young people valiantly tried to dance to the mellow tunes of a bad white jazz band and Stark had to suppress the urge to grab a sax and play it like he learned to play in Soho during the war.

At a convenient moment Stark and Stane were discretely pulled from the party and led to an old-fashioned smoking room, furnished with velvet curtains and decorated to look vaguely Turkish. Starks accountant was in attendance, the documents for the takeover were signed and toasts were made. Stane held his tongue, being by far the most junior in attendance. But Harold had known Stane would enjoy to watch Carbonell hesitate that one tiny moment before he wrote away most of what he had worked for all his life.

The men returned to the party for both had some unfinished business. Stane honed in on a few new acquaintances of his to talk money and Stark allowed him to be visible for a few moments before he wandered through the French doors to the patio and fumbled with his cigarette case as if to smoke. Not even thee minutes passed before he heard the light clack of high heels following him. When Maria spotted him, she went straight for him, looked at his unlit cigarette, took it from his fingers, threw it away impatiently and drew him into the shadows against the house behind one of the fake pillars. The first thing she ever said to him besides the platitudes of their meeting was: "Shut up!", and pulled him down into a kiss. One of her young men entered the patio through the French doors and called out for her. Howard pulled Maria´s body against his so her young suitor had no chance of seeing them and she grinned wickedly when she felt the effect she had on him against her belly.

After the boy went inside, she took him by the hand and fled deeper into the garden to a teahouse surrounded with rosebushes. The heady scent of the roses mingled with her perfume and they were reckless and foolish and she cried out unashamed when he made love to her on the wicker garden seat. Afterwards when she had straightened her dress and fixed her hair and gave him a handkerchief to wipe the lipstick of his face, she told him to stay a while so they would not be seen entering the party together again and he nodded dumbfounded.

That was when he knew his lecherous little scheme of seduction had royally backfired and he was so very, very fucked.

Love them and leave them stood written on the blueprint to Stark's life. Maria Collins Carbonell, for all her daring still somewhat naïve, broke thought his mold and tore him asunder. It was the seventies now, and women could be just as forward as men, thank you very much. He thought the girl far too young to know what she really wanted and he was right. But if she allowed him her affections today, he would selfishly take what she wished to give him. So she stormed into his office, ignoring his protesting secretaries and claimed he had promised her lunch, allowing her to take his hand and lead him along and he spoiled her with whatever she pointed towards at Tiffany's. Howard knew she fought her father over him, but in private matters as well as in those of business Carbonell lacked the will and backbone to fight the mighty Howard Stark, even for his daughter. Another obstacle were their own indiscretions and the tabloids hastily picked up on them, describing the budding romance as some May- December fling which embarrassed Maria and insulted Howard. After five too short weeks, he felt her starting to withdraw. Fate however, had made other plans a long time ago and their mutual foolishness eventually landed the girl firmly in is grasp.

* * *

Stark knew he sounded a bit petty but Lord in heaven, this was not just his fault. On the other hand, it was not just her problem either.

"I do not understand," he wined: " I thought you were a liberated woman and used contraceptives. I sure as hell did."

Howard paced the large and rather impersonal lounge of Stark Mansion. Maria sat small like a trapped bird on the edge of one of the Chesterfields, legs pushed together, hands folded in her lap. She looked at her toes while she spoke to Stark and he wished to god she would look up so he could see those beautiful eyes- and wished just as hard she would not because he hated to see her cry.

"No I don't- they make you fat."

Well yes, that was logical.

Hand on his chest Stark heavily sat down next to her, reaching out by laying his other arm over the backrest towards her, almost touching.

"I still do not understand- I used protection every time."

"Not that fist time. You were drunk that first time."

Oh yeah- right. And now it –was- all his fault.

He took her hands in his. "Sweetheart, I will take care of this. I promise you, I will take care of you. Of both of you."

Maria looked through her lashes at him. "Then you will pay for an abortion?"

Stark felt himself grow cold and he clenched his hands to fists.

"Howard, you are hurting me!"

Quickly he let go of her.

"Howard if you do not pay for an abortion, I will have to ask my parents for the money and I don't know how to do that for this. Don't you understand- We are Catholic and they don't believe in having an abortion."

"You do not have to be a Catholic to not believe in an abortion! I do not believe in an abortion! Honey- don't. Please. I'll marry you. I will take my responsibility for this child. I promise."

She jumped up and away from him. "I don't –want- you to take responsibility! I want to marry someone because I love them, not because of responsibility! I don't want to be a mother yet, don't you understand that! I don't want this baby!" She was panicking.

Stark stood as well and went toe to toe with the girl while she shrank back from him. "So that is what you came here for today, just to ask me to help you murder my child because good –old- Howard is so tightly wound your little finger that he would do –anything- for you. Well not this- I would do anything for you indeed- but not this- and for the record, I –do- love you!"

Stark's mind frosted over blue and he saw his son falling- but perhaps this child would be a girl. He could pray for a girl.

Angry and shaking Maria stepped back, her hands held up in defense as if to push him away.

"Oh now that is a very romantic proposal."

"Allow me to do better!" he hissed, grabbed Maria just above the elbows, pulled her to him and kissed her aggressively and with desperation. For a moment she melted, then she struggled but Stark held on, held her head still with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders. That was when he learned he should have held her at the wrists or at least the lower back because Maria twisted her body away to give herself a little room and kneed hem with all the strength she could muster in the crotch. Stark doubled over, keening, white spots dancing before his eyes and he had to let Maria go. She grabbed her purse and ran. For the next few minutes all the engineer could do was just try to breath and not bite his tongue while he lay on the floor. Finally he got himself together and hobbled to the phone. Maria could run all she liked, but he would cut her off at the pass and call her parents. Whether on not Maria would choose to marry him was less important all of a sudden, the child had to live. Every instinct he had told him so and he feared a residue of the old magic grabbing for him. But if she did choose to be his wife, he thought morosely, then this was one hell of a way to start a marriage. Jones had to be rolling around in his grave, laughing.

Maria was left no choice, or at least none a poor little rich girl could abide. She had some money. She could sell some of her jewelry to cater to her immediate needs should she choose independence. She might even have found herself a job.

To her parents things were simple. Do not bring shame to the family, so marry your lover or be disinherited. Besides, what exactly was so bad about marrying into the Stark fortune?

For Stark nothing was simple anymore. Here he found himself, a fifty-two year old fool, trying to convince a twenty-one year old girl, and barely that, to enter into an almost certainly loveless marriage that could but end in tragedy. If given half a chance he would see it through. A bit because he cared, a lot because he feared what would happen if he tried to outrun fate yet again and help Maria get rid of the baby.

But when he lifted her vale two months later and gently kissed his Maria on the lips with all the tenderness thirty lonely years can save up, he saw tears in her eyes that had nothing to do with grief and her mouth made a little surprised 'o' and he knew there just might be a place for them, somewhere.

* * *

Little Tony came with Maria's soft brown eyes and a healthy set of lungs that disturbed his parent's nights at ungodly hours and the four years that followed were the happiest of Stark's life. Stark forgot he should not really love the noisy little tike, or that Maria was supposed to be a trophy wife only, who as long as there were nannies to take care of nappies did seemed to love her little boy at playtime. Howard learned however, that Maria was less of an empty shell than he had feared and her shallowness had more to do with her being brought up a spoiled daddy´s girl without a sense of direction. Again it was not that he really cared to help better those around him, but he suspected that if Maria would become involved with charity of some sort, she might be able to fill that empty life of hers and become happy with being of use. So he stimulated her and Maria found her talent and an honest affection for the older husband that seemed to respect her for her mind. Discussions at the dinner table included war, prosthetics and scholarships on her end, clean energy and better ways of producing food on his.

Stark was glad. There were too many things he could not discuss at the dinner table.

Stark had promoted Jarvis to be the master of his household and if he paid his butler more than royally for his services, he did not care. His guilt made him keep tabs on the Jones family, and they were relatively doing alright. Marion puttered in her garden filled with purple flowers. Henry Walton 'Mutt' III got his doctorate, got his adventures like his father before him, and got himself a wife as his mother made damn sure he married the woman before their daughter was born.

This ´keeping tabs´ on the Jones family proved both easier and harder because of Stark's S.H.I.E.L.D contacts.

During World War II the allied forces felt the need for a top secret department whose main task would be weapons development in all fields of science. One of the civilian scientist involved with the foundation of the Strategic Scientific Reserve as this branch became known, had been Stark. He quickly realized that he would be far more valuable to the war effort if he put his brain to use instead of his brawn. A failed abduction and more than one unsuccessful attempt on his life by HYDRA, gave him a somewhat inflated sense of self and made him quite reckless at times. The military did not always found him an asset when he nosed around at the front, checking if his missiles did what they were supposed to. When WWII ended, the next war, the Cold War, was already in full swing really. The ruins of HYDRA were pulling itself together under then unknown new leadership. Naturally formed mutations of the human species became visible the globe over, some of them calling themselves Homo Superior claiming to make Homo Sapiens obsolete. And last but not least, home grown criminals and terrorist with delusions of grandeur were stepping up to take over the USA and the world, or possibly just Australia. Something had to be done. So the intelligent, the frightened and the ones in power came together and in deep secrecy decided that the Strategic Scientific Reserve would not be abandoned, but that it had to evolve into something purely American. It became The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. S.H.I.E.L.D., for short. Stark remained on as a weapons developer, but he also found the time to use the agency as his personal playground and loved to provide its personnel with super spy gadgets like jet propelled cars and communicators hidden in fountain pens. Stark Industries had the chance to grow exponentially by catering to the US government, the US military and S.H.I.E.L.D. But running both his company and accepting engineering contracts on devices that only existed in somebody's imagination from three sides was wearing Stark thin. At Stark Industries a young economist by the name of Obadiah Stane had come to his attention a few moths before Stark met his wife, and the man's brilliant business plans, not to mention his a great affinity with PR and the media, allowed Stark to leave the business side and daily running of his company more and more in Stane's hands. This gave him time to venture out in fields like clean energy and become a visionary with ideas and dreams he could never make real. Finally his ideas had crossed into territory the tech of his time could not follow.

S.H.I.E.L.D. questioned Stark's interest in the Jones family. At Stark's behest they spied on Marion by giving her an elderly couple on their payroll as neighbors. Mutt's wife and daughter had moved in with her so they were not difficult to tag either. The young archeologist himself was a bit harder to track, for his somewhat erratic lifestyle traipsing around the world looking for artifacts. Like his father had. But S.H.I.E.L.D. owed favors and Stark made sure they remembered. When he was asked about it, Stark simply answered that Jones had been a friend.

S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives also questioned Stark about his little trip to Nevada and Stark told them what he had told Mutt, reinforcing the truth of his lies. After Jones' body had been exhumed by presumed graverobbers, Marion requested her husband's grave to be demolished and his remains to be cremated. Stark received pictures of Mutt Jones in Egypt climbing a mountain, opening an urn an letting the wind carry the ashes over the Valley of Kings. Stark knew Marion's home had been searched by S.H.I.E.L.D. at least once, but that had been done quite professionally and no-one of the family ever noticed. Stark had now no idea where the black stone was hidden. Whether or not the damned thing still remained in the possession of Mutt, had been brought back to Nevada by S.H.I.E.L.D or simply had been lost, he did not care. He never wanted to be near the cursed stone again and despised and hated anything magic with a vengeance.

Three year old Tony asked if the blue fairy that lived in the garden was the same one he had seen in the Disney movie ´Pinocchio´, and why she was not going home to the stars. Maria laughed when he talked about it and asked what she looked like. ´Not like the movie, ´ Tony told with a frown on his angelic little face. Tony had tried to talk to her, but she did not seem to notice him. She was blue, with a light inside, and clouded like a shard of ice from a frozen puddle in the garden. The clatter of Howard´s cutlery falling onto his plate made the boy jump in his chair and his mother look up in surprise.

Tony had been infected. Through Howard´s blood, Tony had been cursed with his Tesseract visions and his sweet little boy would probably have to pay an even heftier price than die young, if Howard did not prevent it.

Engineering, math, logic and harsh words became Howard´s solution for driving the magic out of his son. Oh the boy was such a delight, such an intelligent child, taking to science like a fish takes too water. Maria panicked when a forgotten soldering iron almost set a workbench on fire, but Howard only saw the motherboard Tony built him and held out for inspection and he felt so very proud of the four-year old boy.

He scolded Tony for not taking the right safety measures, regaling a grown man's responsibility to a toddler.

"Look what you did to your mother!"

Harold forbade fairytales. Tony´s nannies were to tuck him in and leave and if there was any bedtime story to be told by Howard himself, he told of a long lost soldier who had been a better man than any of them could hope to become.

Nights became hard to the adult Stark and the hours in the workshop and laboratories of Stark Industries longer. When insomnia struck, Howard took to wandering the halls of his home, unable to go near the study were the silent memory of Indiana on his knees with that hopeless, desperate look in his eyes lingered. Unfortunately Howard´s insomnia fed by stress and guilt, had his fondness for the bottle develop into full blown alcoholism. His work did not suffer, he made sure of that. But the silence started to invade his days, for Maria chose more and more not to be at home and Tony tinkered alone in his bedroom, quiet and unseen.

On his better days, Howard really tried with Tony. When there was time. He thought the boy how to build an engine from scratch, of the beauty and simplicity in thinking in zero´s and ones. But there were those other days Howard needed two people to help him up the stairs, where he hardly recognized the members of his household, or where a 'wrong look' could set of an endless tirade. Tony was spared the brunt of these days for he had been sent to boarding school from an early age. Howard knew how bad he could become at times and he was glad his beautiful boy could remain unaware of most of those very bad days, unaware his Tony would interpret Howards visible relief when he left quite differently.

One driving need Howard knew above all others. He still had to find a way to help his son survive. If he could not find his son the missing hero, he had to awake the hero inside the boy. Tony had to be raised into a humble, honest man with a backbone of steel, just like Cap, for then the boy did not need to be saved by a ghost. There would be no place in Tony's life for stupidity, hubris- or lies. Every problem life placed in his path was but a solution he had yet to discover.

Tony developed a taste for things that went boom, learned that other children his age were dumb and boring and that most adults were quite the same. Jarvis, Cookie, and the other members of the household were much nicer people, although Tony understood very well that they were servants and were paid to be nice. Tony got away with almost anything he did to them as long as his parents did not find out and by the time his parents sent him off to boarding school, Tony's way of saying 'I love you and I trust you', was teasing people.

Suffice it to say that this did not go over well with his classmates and Tony's tricks turned foul in self-defense. He also learned how to be the cool kid and buy friends. Being far ahead of the school's curriculum already the only real lessons he learned were that everyone lied and the whole world would serve the money of a Stark. The opposite of the values Howard had tried to instill in him. Suffice it to say, Howard was disappointed.

Howard found the long hours in his large home even harder to cope with now his boy was away most of the time and he did not have to fear for exploding micro-waves in the kitchen or miniature rocket launchers in the garden. He came to redesign the mansion and its basements to give him more workspace where he had nobody looking over his shoulder. Besides, the workmen were loud. Arguing about the mess with Maria gave them something to talk about that was more direct and personal then the next charity she was organizing.

* * *

When Tony was nine years old and home for Christmas, he met a very odd man. His father told him he was never to speak about this visit. This made Tony happy because he and his father now shared a secret. The man had entered the front gate on a battered motorcycle that made a dreadful noise which told Tony the engine was terribly calibrated and very dirty. The man wore old army boots, black jeans, a brown leather jacket with a lot of zippers and pockets and a very old battered mud colored hat. Jarvis greeted the man at the door and told him Master Stark would be free momentarily and if the gentleman would be willing to wait in the lounge. The man seemed nervous and annoyed but did as was bid and made himself comfortable in the large room adjacent the hall.

The room was connected to the hall through a large open arch, not a door, and Tony, who had followed Jarvis and the guest, curiously peeked around the corner. The guy had been browsing some magazine but something in his shoulders stiffened when Tony peeked. The boy quickly pulled back. The second time he looked, the old hat sailed through the air, landed perfectly on Tony's head and sunk over his head and eyes. He tilted the hat back shyly and when he saw the stranger smile, he dared a grin of his own.

"Hi kid. You gonna bring me my hat back or what?"

"Yeah well- I would not want to keep it- It's smelly."

The man had a very friendly smile that remained in his eyes while he pretended to be offended.

"Young man, this hat has traveled through deserts and jungles, was nearly eaten by very big alligators and wasalmost lost in a waterfall. I found treasures with it, fought spies with it, and my dad saw a real life flying saucer wearing it. I swear, that is the honest truth and I know it because I was there."

Tony cocked his head and was impressed, but not planning on showing this. "It's still smelly."

The man peered inside, took an exaggerated whiff and pulled a face.

"You know, I do believe you are right, it is smelly. I guess I'm just used to it." He extended his hand.

"Hello. I'm Mutt."

Tony made a surprised face at the name, corrected himself and politely shook the offered appendage.

"I', m Tony Stark. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Mutt."

The man laughed again and roughly ruffled Tony's hair, who, annoyed, stepped back and tried to pat the strands down again.

"Just Mutt kid. You look like your dad."

"Yeah- everybody says so. Mutt is a weird name. Why do you have a weird name? Do you know you're goanna bust your engine if you keep mistreating her like that? She's not calibrated right and she's filthy and I believe you about your hat because she –sounds-like you've –been- in the jungle and the desert with her."

Mutt interrupted the boy by laughing out loud. Tony turned around at his father's chuckle and found him smiling indulgently, leaning with one shoulder against the arch. Tony smiled shyly. It was a good day today.

"Definitely a chip of the old motor block you got here, Stark."

Howard nodded. "Jones. I had not expected a visit." He made a 'come here' gesture to Tony and held the boy close by by putting a hand on Tony's shoulder and giving the boy an encouraging little pat.

Mister Mutt stood, hat in hand. His tone more somber now and no longer smiling.

"You should have, one of these days. You see, I've found something that belongs to you."

"Really."

"Yeah. A couple of very accommodating gentlemen. They- er- helped me out of somewhat of a tight spot. I asked them about it and they said I had to go see you. Say hello from shield? So here I am, saying hello from shield."

Stark nodded and turned to his son. "Tony- why don't you go play now eh?"

The boy got a calculating look in his eye and dared give Mutt a look as if the man just had crawled out from under a stone.

"You and Mr. Mutt are goanna do grown up talk?"

"Yes we are."

"How long?"

Stark chuckled. "Probably long enough. Just, make sure you change first."

Tony nodded happily and ran away towards the stairs.

"Nice kid."

"Yes- you have a daughter, I believe."

With the boy out of the room Mutt's attitude changed and he let anger seep through.

"Oh I do dare say you believe."

Stark narrowed his eyes, nodded and motioned for Mutt to follow.

* * *

About five minutes later one of Starks bodyguards collected Mutts vehicle from the porch, and brought it out of sight, down below into Stark's underground garage.

* * *

**Notes and acknowledgements, also called: the boring bits. Read at your own risk.**

**Paramount Pictures, Marvel Entertainment and Marvel studio's own "Captain America, The First Avenger". Paramount Pictures, Lucasfilm ltd and Steven Spielberg own "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and the other Indy movies I've pilfered. **

**Somewhere in Greece is a muse laughing her socks off for sending me this story and causing me al the work to write it down, forcing me to take the blame for it but also graciously allowing me the credit.**

**In 'Captain America, the First Avenger' the Red Scull made a remark about Hitler seeking treasure in the desert, hitting my Indy-alarm button full force. I just HAD to intertwine the tale of my favorite archeologist with the one about my favorite futurist (Tony, not his dad) after that one. **

**One of the most wonderful things about Marvel is the way they 'play' with their own continuity and throw in an alternate universe every other year or so. I am aware that Dr. Jones' story was continued well into his old age with the television series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". But in the (video/dvd) release of said series they apparently cut out the old Indy who bookended the stories. Well, I thought, if canon can take that liberty, why not me? So should you find things amiss with how they are 'supposed to be' within the continuity of the movie/television-verses, please be kind and assume I'm not some ill informed crazy fan girl that does not know what she's writing about, but that I'm just another proud flag-bearer of the above mentioned honored tradition of alternate realities.**

**The 'crazy fan girl' denomination on its own however, is acceptable.**


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